ABSTRACT
Unlike Extrapolation, which was launched at a seminar of the Modern Language Association in 1959, and Science Fiction Studies, the brainchild of Dale Mullen and Darko Suvin in 1973, the origins of Foundation and its parent organization, the Science Fiction Foundation, are thoroughly disreputable. Hay strikes me as an idealist, a man who believed in the transformative power of science fiction and who saw, in the works of Isaac Asimov, John W. Campbell and Robert A. Heinlein, blueprints for how the world could be saved from environmental and nuclear destruction. Todays young activists, such as those discussed by Adwait Singh in his conference report from the London Science Fiction Research Community, are much more likely to speak of Samuel R. Delany, Octavia Butler (as in Larissa Lais Fourfold Library piece) or Kim Stanley Robinson.
ABSTRACT
On March 4, 2018, two casualties collapsed on a park bench in Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK. They were later discovered to have been the victims of an attempted murder using the Soviet-era Novichok class of nerve agent. The casualties, along with three further critically ill patients, were cared for in Salisbury District Hospital's Intensive Care Unit. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Salisbury and Amesbury incidents were the longest-running major incidents in the history of the UK National Health Service. This narrative review seeks to reflect on the lessons learned from these chemical incidents, with a particular focus on hospital and local organisational responses.
Subject(s)
Chemical Hazard Release/prevention & control , Emergency Medical Services/methods , Mass Casualty Incidents/prevention & control , Nerve Agents/poisoning , Organophosphates/toxicity , Personal Protective Equipment , Biological Factors/poisoning , Humans , Incidence , Radioactive Hazard Release/prevention & control , Radiologic Health , United Kingdom/epidemiologyABSTRACT
[...]to know what we love is to return to the history as it was - to explore, to choose, to argue, as O'Hara contended, or indeed in any number of forums in sf magazines and fanzines. To exercise our powers of discernment, even in something as seemingly peripheral as sf, is to also exercise our skills in democratic decision-making: of exploring independently, of listening to others, and of making a rational decision based upon what we have learnt. Which only leaves me to say that, in addition to our academic database providers EBSCO and ProQuest, online copies of Foundation are now available at http://fanac.org/ fanzines/Foundation/